Report: U.S. Broadband Is Just Mediocre

[crisan_tiberiu]

an one more thing about that 20 $ broadband internet...it is an unlimited connection

 

[therandomuser]

Well, for the country that invented most of the internet, the US broadband companies (i.e. Verizon, Comcast, Cox et. al.) are taking their sweet time getting the internet to everyone.

Seriously, I live just outside LA and the best internet I can get in my area is s**tty Verizon. They have crap for tech support, they lowered my DSL speeds TWICE now, and they raised my rates. I'm down to barely scratching 80MBps (that's MB not MBit/Mb) downloading, 100MBps on a good day. I'm lucky if it even surges to 150MBps.

I would have considered their FiOS if they even got on the task about the crappy lines in my area that disconnects the internet every 2 minutes in the winter. OUTSIDE. LOS. ANGELES. What?!

 

[crisan_tiberiu]

[citation][nom]therandomuser[/nom]Well, for the country that invented most of the internet, the US broadband companies (i.e. Verizon, Comcast, Cox et. al.) are taking their sweet time getting the internet to everyone.Seriously, I live just outside LA and the best internet I can get in my area is s**tty Verizon. They have crap for tech support, they lowered my DSL speeds TWICE now, and they raised my rates. I'm down to barely scratching 80MBps (that's MB not MBit/Mb) downloading, 100MBps on a good day. I'm lucky if it even surges to 150MBps.I would have considered their FiOS if they even got on the task about the crappy lines in my area that disconnects the internet every 2 minutes in the winter. OUTSIDE. LOS. ANGELES. What?![/citation]
you are a bit confusing here. Your problem is that is expensive and unstable but not slow and expensive. and one more thing 1 B (Byte) = 8b (bits) so if u say that u surge up to 150 MBps that is 1,2 Gbps. But you are probably misspelling .
The other thing in Romania. The technological jump here happened here when 2 companies (well infact 1) decided to build a new national network based on fiber optics. The jump happened ermm... arround6 -7 years ago and it was a jump from a 4 KBps dial up to a 50 Mbps broadband..then 100 Mbps. Now there are offers of 120 Mbps.

 

[TheWhiteRose000]

I KNOW!
I'M STUCK WITH FREAKING 3MBS?!
I'VE BEEN DIEING TO MOVE TO NORWAY, TO BE WITH MY FIANCEE AND ALSO GET A BETTER INTERNET CONNECTION!

AMERICA!
Y U SUCK SO MUCH!

 

[Guest]

10Mbps is awesome.. think about us in India.. 10$ for 2Mbps and 2.5 GB limit.. What are you going to do with such a connection?

 

[_Pez_]

well I have a 2 megabits connection = 250Kbytes/seg in mexico and I have to pay about $60 usd for that. I think want to kill my whole goverment. :S

 

[Xenophage]

Eliminate the utilities monopolies and this situation would reverse dramatically. We need competition, and have none. With a healthy dose of capitalism and some profit motive, we'd far outpace the Europeans and Asians in both price and performance.

The problem currently lies with local municipalities granting exclusive rights to infrastructure development. They've been doing it for most of last 100 years, and we're stuck with the same old telephone company and the same old cable company in the vast majority of the U.S.

Infrastructure development costs lots of capital. The taxes on it are outrageous. To make development feasible, companies strike a deal with local governments for exclusive control (a monopoly!). Anyone who knows history knows monopolies don't arise of their own accord. It generally takes some government action to screw the average consumer.

We need MORE CHOICES than just COMCRAP!

 

[outlw6669]

Yeah, the U.S. is kinda getting bent over with their net.
As a contrast, in my corner of Germany a standard 50Mb/s down, 10MB/s up VDLS2 package with no bandwidth caps and unlimited landline costs a hair under 40€/mo.

 

[rantoc]

100/100Mbit (getting around 95/95 mbit in speedtests) landline for me in Sweden with unlimited traffic costs about 20€. I feel sorry for those that pay more!

 

[molo9000]

[citation][nom]Xenophage[/nom]Eliminate the utilities monopolies and this situation would reverse dramatically. We need competition, and have none. With a healthy dose of capitalism and some profit motive, we'd far outpace the Europeans and Asians in both price and performance. The problem currently lies with local municipalities granting exclusive rights to infrastructure development. They've been doing it for most of last 100 years, and we're stuck with the same old telephone company and the same old cable company in the vast majority of the U.S.Infrastructure development costs lots of capital. The taxes on it are outrageous. To make development feasible, companies strike a deal with local governments for exclusive control (a monopoly!). Anyone who knows history knows monopolies don't arise of their own accord. It generally takes some government action to screw the average consumer.We need MORE CHOICES than just COMCRAP![/citation]

The problem is that these telecommunication monopolies are actual natural monopolies and would exist even if there was no government intervention. It's next to impossible to compete with a company that already has an existing network. (look up "sunk costs")

Government intervention is necessary. I bet all countries that rank high on this list have government regulated networks.
The key to success is smart regulation.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

/me would like to see the original report. Link?

 

[blackwidow_rsa]

Compared to South African DSL speeds...this is BLAZING

 

[mustbhacks]

[citation][nom]Xenophage[/nom]Eliminate the utilities monopolies and this situation would reverse dramatically. We need competition, and have none. With a healthy dose of capitalism and some profit motive, we'd far outpace the Europeans and Asians in both price and performance. The problem currently lies with local municipalities granting exclusive rights to infrastructure development. They've been doing it for most of last 100 years, and we're stuck with the same old telephone company and the same old cable company in the vast majority of the U.S.Infrastructure development costs lots of capital. The taxes on it are outrageous. To make development feasible, companies strike a deal with local governments for exclusive control (a monopoly!). Anyone who knows history knows monopolies don't arise of their own accord. It generally takes some government action to screw the average consumer.We need MORE CHOICES than just COMCRAP![/citation]

Capitalism is WHY we have no competition.

 

[custodian-1]

[citation][nom]jackblack2323[/nom]If I had the download speeds of other Countries, I don't think I could afford the terabytes of hard drive space that I would require after just days of constant downloading.Maybe having slow speeds is a good thing.[/citation]

Hard drive space is cheap I mean really cheap. I've seen prices as low as $54 /w rebate and free shipping. I currently have WHS with 27 TB

 

[custodian-1]

sorry I meant 2TB drive

 

[therandomuser]

[citation][nom]crisan_tiberiu[/nom]you are a bit confusing here. Your problem is that is expensive and unstable but not slow and expensive. and one more thing 1 B (Byte) = 8b (bits) so if u say that u surge up to 150 MBps that is 1,2 Gbps. But you are probably misspelling . The other thing in Romania. The technological jump here happened here when 2 companies (well infact 1) decided to build a new national network based on fiber optics. The jump happened ermm... arround6 -7 years ago and it was a jump from a 4 KBps dial up to a 50 Mbps broadband..then 100 Mbps. Now there are offers of 120 Mbps.[/citation]

Oops... That's supposed to say KBps...

 

[wcnighthawk]

There's another problem no one is talking about. That's the attitudes most (older generally) Americans have. How many people do you know (even within my own IT office!) that just don't care about speed. "Oh yea, I got a 3 meg connection, but that's all I need"....everybody knows someone like this, because they probably make up the majority of the population.

It's that sort of assbackwards thinking that also needs to be reversed in order to drive companies to push for higher speeds, otherwise we'll be waiting for those old farts to die off 20-30 years from now before we finally can get to the broadband promised land when the newer generation takes over.

 

[verbalizer]

Report: U.S. Broadband Is Just Mediocre

tell me something I do not know..

 

[thearm]

Good. That's better than it was called in the past.

 

[mcpcna01]

Living in the US, out West my question is how do countries that are this size and have this much low density population and wilderness areas fare on the list? I am not mimizing the fact that we could do better but I would like to see this considered. With the budget issues we are having I want Government money spent elsewhere. Maybe give tax breaks to companies for upgrading, higher amounts for bigger upgrades.